Would bad splice or wire cause parasitic draw??

[badmix]

My batt. seemed a lil weak the other day, took a few to get the starter to kick. Check some voltages, yesterday had 12.58 and today im in the 12.44 range. The only factor that has changed on my truck was some rewiring of the dome lights. Instead of the wire running from fuse box to lights under carpet, I no longer have carpet and didnt want wires running over top of my line x interior, so I chopped , spliced and rerouted them under the truck. Could I have a bad splice or crimp that would cause a parasitic draw??????

Thanks

 

[dremu]

As long as it's insulated, no. At worst it would ADD resistance which would draw less juice.

Now, if the insulation is frayed and one of the strands is touching the body/frame somewhere, then yeah, it's shorting to ground which will draw juice.

Look for frayed/cut insulation or bare wires.

-- A

 

[readymix]

You should be checking for a current draw, not a voltage drop.

 

[dremu]

Could also be that your battery cables are corroded, which would (1) make it harder to start and (2) make it harder for your alternator to charge the battery.

-- A

 

[badmix]

My battery cables and connects are clean. I use some anti corrosion stuff on them.

I check voltage drop over a period time to see if batt is being depleted. This worked one other time I had a parasitic draw, it ended up being the Tachometer was wired to a constant hot source and was drawing down the battery.

My volt meter is a POS, so I resorted to using a test light. I pull the neg. cable off the battery and put the test light inbetween the batt. terminal and the batt cable. Im getting a very faint light with the dome light fuse installed. If I pull the dome light fuse it goes away. So the dome lights even with the doors closed are pulling some power. Here is the funny thing. Ive got 3 interior lights, the 2 dome lights over head and one under the dash. THe one under the dash is on a diff. circuit. I thought this was weird.

Anyways, just going to keep an eye on it. My batts arent that old. not old enuff to cause any issues. I did alot of starting and stopping yesterday so maybe that played a role.

 

[badmix]

Okay. here is what Im doing so far. I thought I had this figure out (how to find the draw, but always seems to be a challenge).

I disco the neg. battery terminal from the battery. hook the pos. lead of the Volt meter to the neg battery cable, hooke the neg. lead of the volt meter to the neg side of the battery.

Ive got my dual batt. out of the picture and nothing else hooked up to the main battery other than pos. cable.

On my volt meter , im using DC A. Here are the numbers:

With it on the settings that says 2000m I get 006

With it on the settings that says 200m I get 05.6

With it on the settings that says 20m I get 5.47

No needless to say, im not 100% sure what these numbers mean.

I know if you have a draw of .035 amps or 35 miliamps or less your fine.

So how do my numbers compare to the 35milliamps or else theory?

 

[AZ79K5Project]

5 to 6 milliamps. Do you have an in-dash clock?

 

[badmix]

5 to 6 milliamps. Do you have an in-dash clock?

I disco'd the clock long time ago.

The way I was reading the 200m = 05.6 was to move the decimal 2 places, which the 200m (dial on the voltmeter) has my reading at .056 milliamps which is just above the standard amp draw thresh hold of .035amps

 

[dremu]

I disco'd the clock long time ago.

The way I was reading the 200m = 05.6 was to move the decimal 2 places, which the 200m (dial on the voltmeter) has my reading at .056 milliamps which is just above the standard amp draw thresh hold of .035amps

Ouch. You have mad math skillz, yo.

The range is the full scale reading. (The concept of scaling dates back to analog meters, thus the name.) You need not go shifting the decimal around for the scale, but you may choose to do so to convert units (i.e. amps to milliamps.)

If it says 5.47 for a full-scale of 20mA, that means it's 5.47mA == .00547A (which matches the 6mA and 5.6mA, if you round for each.)

Where did you get this 35mA number? I figger if my truck that has no electronic anything is drawing ANY juice it's got a problem ... but the one with the CD player and such, if it's drawing less than an amp I'm not worried.

-- A

 

[badmix]

Thanks for clearing up my math. I know it sux. that is why I asked. lol.

Here is one of many sites I got info from

http://flashoffroad.com/electrical/Batteries/BatteryDrain.html

Ive always known the acceptable draw was .025-.035amps.

I know when I had a draw once b4 (it was my tach hooked to constant hot) I got better readings and simply forgot how to read it. lol